Over the years, many Baba lovers have shared with me that they find that their work in the world takes them away from their focus on Baba. Hours go by preoccupied with mundane details at work that they feel have nothing to do with their spiritual life and only contributes to the bottom line of the companies they work for. They have barely any time to remember Baba until after work. This same scenario goes on year after year. Mine was the opposite problem as I will describe, but an exchange with Eruch throws...
Over the years, many Baba lovers have shared with me that they find that their work in the world takes them away from their focus on Baba. Hours go by preoccupied with mundane details at work that they feel have nothing to do with their spiritual life and only contributes to the bottom line of the companies they work for. They have barely any time to remember Baba until after work. This same scenario goes on year after year. Mine was the opposite problem as I will describe, but an exchange with Eruch throws light on this whole subject.
Back in the mid-1970s before I began working at the Center, a buddy of mine and I were working together as house painters. Much of our painting work was in Briarcliffe Acres, an upscale residential area just north of the Center. Back then, I would describe myself as a Baba remembrance machine; I would say “Baba, Baba, Baba...” inwardly--with each brush stroke, while sanding, caulking, cutting in windows and baseboards, all with Baba’s name. We worked together for six months, and then we went to India.
One day while at Meherazad, we were sitting just outside Mandali Hall on a bench with Eruch. My buddy asked, “Eruch, I work as a house painter, and sometimes hours go by and I haven’t even thought of Baba. He is the most important Being in the world, and He has asked us to make Him our constant companion, and I’m often not even remembering Him! What can I do about that?” Eruch replied in his very casual way, “In the beginning, it’s important to remember Baba, to repeat His name, see the movies, go where Baba has been and read all the Baba literature. But in time it becomes important to forget yourself. When you forget yourself, Baba can then live through you. You’re not aware of it, but He is living through you. So, lose yourself in your painting.” He went on to say, “Get wholeheartedly lost in your activities, and when you come out of that absorption, remember Baba—that is, when you remember to remember, remember Him!”
In that moment, I felt the undeniable truth of Eruch’s words; they were indelibly imprinted in the core of my being: “When you forget yourself, Baba can then live through you.” That was a turning point for me in my life with Baba, because I had become a bit rigid in remembering Him all the time. I had lost the playfulness that had always been a part of me since childhood, the spontaneous enthusiasm of my college days, the genuine fun in life that I experienced over the years. Since that brief, life-changing conversation with Eruch, I have found that self-forgetfulness and remembrance of Baba make a vital and complementary dynamic in my inner life.
So, this is how I translate Eruch’s words into my life: when I get into something, such as volleyball or music or gardening, I lose myself. Baba, as Eruch said, can then live through me even though I am not aware of it. And after the activity, I remember Him. So, it’s an alternating between Baba remembrance and self-forgetfulness. I found, when it was all Baba remembrance, I would become a little stiff and unnatural, and if it’s all self-forgetfulness, that also can sometimes become unbalanced. Self-forgetfulness and Baba remembrance work beautifully and harmoniously together for me. That awareness freed me up to do a lot of things on the Center that might not technically be considered “Baba.” Baba liked games, skits, jokes, movies and spontaneous gatherings, because in them we forget ourselves. Like gardening–-you can lose yourself among the flowers and hours fly by. It’s heavenly.
I asked Margaret Craske’s dancers, most of whom were deeply devoted to Baba, if they remembered Him out on the stage in the midst of their performances. This was ballet at its highest level at the time. They all said that they remembered Baba before their performances, and then lost themselves in their dancing on stage. Afterwards, they would dedicate their performance to Baba. They had all tried at one time to remember Him during their performances, but they confessed that it took away from their total absorption in the dance.
Have you faced this dilemma in your own life, of getting into things so deeply that you forget Baba and then feeling that you are letting Him down? Will what Eruch said make a difference in your approach to, say, your computer work, which can absorb your attention for hours? Does self-forgetfulness change the way you approach what you normally think of as unspiritual? Do you resolve this challenge by keeping Baba always there in the background while you focus on the practical details of life in the foreground? Do you sometimes find that you overdo getting into things and forget Baba, like watching football all day on Sunday?
In His love, Jeff
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